Minimalist artist from O.C. hits home run with ballpark prints

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S. Preston shows off minimalist artwork he made of the iconic Big A of Angels Stadium. He has created minimalist renderings of ballparks and other sports facilities and teams.

S. Preston shows off minimalist artwork he made of Angels Stadium in Anaheim. Preston is a Tustin resident who does minimalist renderings of ballparks and other sports facilities and teams. His stadium art is licensed by MLB.

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S. Preston shows off his minimalist MLB artwork under the giant cap at Angels Stadium in Anaheim. Preston is a Tustin resident who does minimalist renderings of ballparks and other sports facilities and teams.

S. Preston shows off his artwork of baseball stadiums, which is licensed by Major League Baseball. He says his work as the antithesis of “man cave” art.

A single row of purple chairs among a sea of forest green stadium seats provides the solitary clue as to the venue that inspired the artwork.

That guessing game is part of the intrigue for fans of the minimalist designs created by Tustin resident Mike Chuhon, who, under the pseudonym S. Preston, has created a series of prints reflecting ballparks throughout the nation and in his native Canada.

Each print highlights an element of the stadium or the experience of being at a game. Some are more subtle than others, but only a few reveal the venue on first glance.

Three years ago, he was a 40-year-old web designer, living in Vancouver.

That milestone birthday, compounded by his father’s death, led him to move to California without knowing how he would make ends meet.

“I sold everything I owned and moved with three bags,” he said. “I was following my heart.”

Without a family, without a mortgage, nothing was holding him back from “letting fate play its course,” he said.

Once in Orange County, melding his lifelong passion for art and for sports, he designed six prints of Major League stadiums, including Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park, and shared them on Tumblr, a social blogging site.

“The next day it got a couple likes, a few shares,” he said.

The following day, it went viral.

“My phone was full of messages from major sports news outlets,” he said.

About a year after he left Vancouver, he got a voicemail from an MLB representative.

Instead, he got his artwork licensed. Now he is one of a select few artists with an MLB licensing agreement, he said.

The agreement prompted him to begin focusing on art full-time.

“I don’t know why it took me 40 years to figure out I wanted to be an artist,” he said, laughing.

Since then, Preston has sold prints to fans nationwide and been a featured artist at two All-Star games, in Minneapolis in 2014 and in 2015 in Cincinnati.

Typically, when he begins sketching he has something representative of the park in his mind.

He has only been to five baseball stadiums in person; he learned the nuances of the venues he hasn’t been to by watching games on television.

After the intial drawing is put to paper, he moves the design to the computer, where he develops it further.

His design for Comerica Park in Detroit highlights the tiger statues displayed at the stadium’s entrances. Chicago’s U.S. Cellular Field is represented by a simple row of pinwheels, like those atop its scoreboard.

“I’m a huge baseball fan,” he said. “Players move around teams; jerseys and logos change; but the stadium sort of feels like home.”

His favorite ballpark design is of Nationals Park. Stuck on how to design it, he took to Twitter for tips and heard from fans that the stadium’s Presidents Race, after the fourth inning, was what they liked most about ballgames at the Washington, D.C. stadium.

He took their advice, and featured the four presidents featured on Mt. Rushmore against a green backdrop in the Nationals Park print.

Prices range from about $35 for an 8.5- by 11-inch print to about $400 for a 17-inch by 26-inch collector’s edition. The prints are museum-quality, done with archival ink.

He advertises his work as the antithesis of the art you would find tacked up in a typical “man cave.”

“I call it living-room worthy sports art,” he said. He counts a number of interior designers among his fan base.

“I told my wife, look at this, honey; he does some cool stuff,” he recalled.

That Christmas, she gifted him a print with all 30 ballparks, matted in Angels red.

It went up on the wall of their guest room.

“The collection started to grow from there,” Jackson said.

Today the Jackson family has three pieces at their home. Matt Jackson, 32, a professor in Cal State Northridge’s theater department, has six S. Preston pieces at his office.

“It’s baseball art you don’t have to relegate to the garage,” he said. “Artwork associated with baseball tends to be focused on the past. There’s all this history behind it. When that’s represented, it tends to be in antiquated styles.

“It’s not a bad thing, but Preston’s stood out because it looks fresh and modern and clean and simple. It gets right to the point.”

While the artist’s first love is baseball, he has branched out since finishing the stadium series, drawing minimalist versions of college and professional football venues.

He has also drawn portraits of “ballpark princesses,” or Disney-inspired sketches of women in baseball gear, during Angels game and gives them away for free to fans. (The Jacksons have some of these sketches in their baby daughter’s room.)

“It’s a fun way to meet new fans,” he said.

His next big project is a series of minimalist baseball mascots, work he is also hoping to have licensed.

As for that row of purple seats?

They mark the 1-mile elevation at Coors Field, in Colorado – the highest stadium from which to watch a Major League ballgame.